I Clicked Publish on My First Book and Sold Nothing for Two Weeks
I had fallen into the classic trap every new author falls into. I thought writing the book was the hard part. Wrong.
Tag: Amazon & KDP
Amazon is where most books live or die, and its rules reward authors who understand them. These posts cover Kindle Direct Publishing, rankings, reviews, and getting a book to perform inside the world’s largest bookstore.
Amazon & KDPBook Covers: Why They Matter and How to Get Them Right
Readers decide in a fraction of a second, scanning covers on Amazon or shelves in a store. Get yours wrong and you lose them before they read a word. Here is what actually makes a cover work, which formats you…
Amazon & KDPPublishing Types: Traditional, Self-Publishing, and Hybrid Compared
Clients usually know they want a book and have barely thought about how it reaches readers, but that choice decides control, speed, money, and whether the book does its job. Three paths are worth weighing. Here is traditional, self-publishing, and…
Amazon & KDPSelf-Publishing Platforms: Where to Publish Your Book
The platform you choose is not a small decision; it sets your distribution, your royalty rate, your formats, and how much control you keep. Pick wrong and you cap the book's reach before anyone reads a page. Here is what…
Amazon & KDPStop Chasing Bestseller Lists: What Actually Makes a Book Valuable
Once a month someone asks me how to hit the New York Times list, and I tell them the truth they do not want to hear: it barely matters. The lists are corrupt and largely irrelevant to what a book…
Amazon & KDP15 Ways to Put Your Book to Work After Publication
Publishing the book is not the finish line, it is the starting line. A book sitting on Amazon doing nothing is a wasted asset. Here are 15 concrete ways my most successful clients put their books to work, and what…
Amazon & KDPInternational Publishing Mistakes That Kill Your Book’s Global Reach
The moment you publish, your book is global, Amazon hits a dozen marketplaces, ebooks land instantly, print-on-demand ships worldwide, and yet most authors quietly cap their own reach with avoidable mistakes. Having ghostwritten for clients across six countries, I have…
Amazon & KDPYour Book Works in Any Country: International Publishing for Authors
Most authors picture readers in their own country and stop there, which is thinking far too small. An English book can reach every English-speaking market, and with translation, every market on earth, and the infrastructure has never been more accessible.…
Amazon & KDPBook Marketing That Actually Works: What I Learned Publishing 113+ Books
Most book marketing advice comes from people who sell marketing courses, not people who have sold books. Build a list, run ads, get on BookBub: it sounds reasonable and skips the part that matters. After 113+ books, here is what…
SEE » The Elephant in the Room: Marketing Your Books and Services series
Amazon & KDPHow to Handle a Bad Book Review: From an Author With 113+ Books
Most of my books sit at four and five stars, but every author eventually meets the brutal one-star takedown. The first one stings; it does not have to derail you. After 113+ books, here is how I read a bad…
AI vs Human GhostwritingAI Ghostwriting vs. Human Ghostwriting: What the Interview Process Actually Produces
AI can spit out a book-length manuscript in minutes, and the internet is full of people who wrote a book in a weekend with ChatGPT. The output exists; whether anyone will care is another matter. The machine predicts likely next…
Amazon & KDPYour “Stupid” Business Idea Is Someone’s Million-Dollar Solution
Derek Sivers just wanted to sell his band's CD, labels ignored him, scouts never showed, so he built a bare website with a shopping cart to do it himself. That throwaway became CD Baby, sold years later for millions. Airbnb,…